Sunday 27 December 2015

I'm still here and I have big plans.

So, I know I said I'd be posting regularly very soon, about two weeks back, but shit happened. I am definitely still doing the blog and I am definitely still planning some cool things in the near future, it's just that life caught me. I haven't been depressed and I haven't been through a tragedy, I've just been feeling very sluggish and melancholic lately. I'm not going to go into the reasons why because it's the sort of pointless, banal minutiae that everyone goes through at one point or another.
Anyway, excuses aside, here are a few things I have planned as features for the blog and they WILL be coming within the week. Bearing in mind that this site is still in the embryonic stage and I really have no vision yet as to the overall theme/focus of the thing, here are some ideas I'm toying with.

I'm a grumpy fucker. It has to be said. You will find that out for yourself sooner or later, should you choose to keep reading. My passionate and opinionated nature will start to become very apparent. It's very much a 21st century notion that opinions are bad if they are said too loudly or with any kind of confident conviction. Since we are heading towards a philosophical and spiritual dark age of illiteracy and simplistic thinking, I think only an idiot could take such an idea seriously or condone such an idea given the state the world is in right now. My views are all based on careful thought, rationality, and a sense of ethics. This is what separates an opinionated person from an anonymous spewer of garbage on the Internet. Anyway, there is a point to this rambling. I am going to be doing opinion posts on whatever strikes me and whatever it is I've been thinking about, be it novels in Hollywood or 21st century frustrations.
I know I'm just some random unknown with a blog, but I hope you'll stick with me through this and just try it out. I promise you that all of my opinions will be informed and/or thoroughly thought out. I know you'll need to be convinced, so maybe this will help: I use a pseudonym on here but my real name is Kyle Whitehead. That is my name on Youtube and the only names I ever go by on the Internet are Kyle Whitehead and Kyle J White. This means whenever I go on a rant or engage in an argument online, it is under a real human name. Not some username. I have aspirations as a novelist and the name that will be on my books will be one of the names I go by right here on this blog. My opinions will stick with me so rest assured when I tell you I am not just going to shoot off at the mouth without thinking. When I say something, I believe it and I tell the whole truth of my belief. I will be releasing a piece on my feelings about film adaptations of novels within the next day or so.

Moving on.

I've been inspired by the great speculative fiction author, Harlan Ellison (Look up "Harlan Ellison's Watching" on Youtube) to dabble in criticism and endorsement. When I say criticism, I don't mean taking a look at something and listing the ways in which it is horrible, and when I say endorsement, I don't mean infomercials for laxatives or anal bleaching products.
We are in the 21st century. That's how I, an unknown and unpublished writer, am on here self publishing. One of the many faults specific to this time is that everyone seems to have a short memory and a woefully short attention span. It's all about what's out this week and what happened today. What new Hollywood film is being shoved in our faces this month?
Truly great literature and writers have fallen into obscurity because of the convenience over quality culture we are living in. Another side effect of this culture is an increasing illiteracy and lack of free thought.
I want to have a feature on this site dedicated to bringing authors or specific works to your attention by reviewing them and to telling you about literature/comic book related items I think are worth buying. You won't see the "The Fault in Our Stars" heralded as great literature here. If you want that sort of thing, there are plenty of thirty year old YA fanatics on Youtube who'll tell you all about the week's fluff. This is dedicated to writers and stories you may not have heard of. The greats who should never be forgotten and who you owe it to yourself to read. This blog is not monetized and I have no sponsors so everything I tell you about and all the opinions I'll express, I'll be doing so genuinely. The endorsement side of it will pertain mostly to quality books and anthologies.

Now onto the main event. The initial motivation behind starting a blog was simply to get myself out there as a writer. The plan was -and still is- to write for Cracked.com, to sell some short stories to magazines, and to get some sort of internet following so that when I submit a novel to an agent, I'll have X Y and Z on my portfolio. It stands to reason then, that I should be producing fiction of some sort for the blog. Therefor, I plan on releasing a serial novel (or novella, perhaps) written to my highest standard for you to read for free. I don't yet have an idea for said story and I don't think it will be appearing in the coming weeks but I expect that in a month or two there will be part 1 of a serial novel on the site. I may also be putting the occasional (very) short story on here, but as I said before, I plan on selling those to magazines so you will be more likely to receive links to read my sold short stories than see blog exclusives. That being said, I expect there will be a few blog exclusive short stories.

Well, that about does it. I will continue with the occasional comic book reviews and you can expect a gradual increase in comic book related material as I get more acquainted with the comic book world. There may be a personal blog or two but they'll be few and far between. I hope you'll pay me a visit some time next week if any of this sounded remotely interesting to you, and I would appreciate it if you'd spread the word if you think anyone you know might find any of this remotely interesting.

When I'm not whoring myself out, I'm wasting my life on Facebook as Kyle J White.